Nancy Pelosi rocks out at Friday’s Dead show

Several spies, including Regan McMahon and Greg Clinton, reported from the Saturday Grateful Dead show at Levi’s Stadium that Nancy Pelosi — with security detail — was there and rocking out to the music. She was with her daughter Christine and son-in-law Peter Kaufman, and she was definitely free-form dancing, says Clinton, who was sitting nearby. Unlike many other listeners, she did not appear to be stoned.

During intermission, Pelosi went backstage to visit Mickey Hart. Christine calls her mother a “longtime Deadhead,” and notes that Hart, Bob Weir and friends played when she became House whip and House speaker.

As to the lengthy drum solo that came at the end of the show, that’s probably a lullaby to someone whose professional life is filled with all kinds of percussion.

P.S.: “Went to the Dead show,” says Fred Reiss. “They played for four hours. Great song!”

As Joshua Kosman mentioned in his review of Friday night’s Kronos Quartet tribute to Terry Riley, Kronos leader David Harrington cited Antonin Scalia’s soon-to-be-legendary “Ask the nearest hippie” remark — from his dissent to the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling — describing Riley as the nearest hippie. So at the party that followed the concert, after the traditional “Happy Birthday” was sung, I asked Riley, resplendent in embroidered cap and fitted black coat with white silk scarf draped around his neck, whether he accepted that description.

“Of course,” he said. “It’s a happy label, because for me the hippie movement was about giving and sharing. People were thinking about other people. It was flawed, but it was beautiful. I’m very happy to be considered part of that.”

Among the highlights of the evening I’m still savoring is Harrington’s recollection of playing Riley’s “Salome Dances for Peace” at Tanglewood. In the middle of what must have been a rehearsal, Harrington glanced up and noticed a figure emerging from a side of the stage. It was Leonard Bernstein, dancing. “I put my violin down. Everyone stopped playing. Bernstein said, ‘Don’t stop, don’t stop. It sounds like Egyptian whorehouse music to me.’” When Harrington informed Riley of the comment, Riley said he wanted to put it into the press kit.

Down at the front of the hall, during the carefully planned “jam session” that ended the concert, the legendary Anna Halprin, sparkling in white with blue silk scarf around her neck, danced. At the same time, at the very back, longtime Kronos board member Alice Wingwall shook a cluster of bells that might have been the instrument of a nomadic tribe, which she gripped with a woodworker’s clamp. Afterward, a crowd gathered around her to get a glimpse of the contraption, and she looked glad — as did everyone who was listening — to have been part of the performance.

“Additionally,” says the job description for a post newly established, “the department develops new initiatives including opportunities to collaborate ... establishes partnerships and collaborations with other organizations, agencies or governments. ... Overall, the formalization of a knowledge-sharing program which provides access to the accumulated knowledge, expertise, resources and learnings resident in the community is critical to mission of fostering this work in the world.”

That very corporate-sounding gig for which applicants are sought — a long way from a bunch of free spirits on the beach — is for Burning Man’s new “Director of Art and Civic Engagement.”

•Listening to the wisdom of Donald Trump on marriage, says David Perry, “is like asking the captain of the Titanic for a course in water safety. His idea of traditional marriage: one woman at a time.”

•Above the bar at Zuni as of Thursday night, June 25, says an anonymous fan of the cafe, were “dozens, probably 100-plus bride-and-groom wedding cake topper miniatures, two grooms, two brides, bride and groom alternating for the length of the bar above the bottles.” The first item on the dessert menu the next night, Friday, was “wedding cake with fresh berries.”

•At the Pride Parade, Kenneth Roberts overheard a spectator in a Boston Celtics T-shirt: “It’s Gavin Newsom. But I don’t know who he is.”

•Kent Peterman noticed that a Chronicle advertisement for the close-out sale at Pool Patio & More in Atherton read, “Only 3 More Weeks and Atherton Is Gone Forever.” Duck and cover, Athertonians.

Leah Garchik washed up on the shores of Fifth and Mission in 1972, began her duties as a part-time temporary steno clerk, and ascended the journalistic ladder. Over the years, she has served as writer, reviewer, editor and columnist. She is the author of two books, “San Francisco: Its Sights and Secrets” and “Real Life Romance."

She is an avid knitter, a terrible accordion player, a sporadic tweeter and a pretty good speller.